CVE-2023-53149
Published: September 16, 2025Last modified: September 16, 2025
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: avoid deadlock in fs reclaim with page writeback Ext4 has a filesystem wide lock protecting ext4_writepages() calls to avoid races with switching of journalled data flag or inode format. This lock can however cause a deadlock like: CPU0 CPU1 ext4_writepages() percpu_down_read(sbi->s_writepages_rwsem); ext4_change_inode_journal_flag() percpu_down_write(sbi->s_writepages_rwsem); - blocks, all readers block from now on ext4_do_writepages() ext4_init_io_end() kmem_cache_zalloc(io_end_cachep, GFP_KERNEL) fs_reclaim frees dentry... dentry_unlink_inode() iput() - last ref => iput_final() - inode dirty => write_inode_now()... ext4_writepages() tries to acquire sbi->s_writepages_rwsem and blocks forever Make sure we cannot recurse into filesystem reclaim from writeback code to avoid the deadlock.
Severity score breakdown
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Base score | 5.5 |
| Attack Vector | LOCAL |
| Attack complexity | LOW |
| Privileges required | LOW |
| User interaction | NONE |
| Scope | UNCHANGED |
| Confidentiality | NONE |
| Integrity impact | NONE |
| Availability impact | HIGH |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
Status
| Product | Release | Package | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpaquita Linux | 23 LTS | linux-lts | Vulnerable (6.1.151-r0) |
| 25 LTS | linux-lts | Not affected (6.6.89-r0) | |
| Stream | linux-lts | Fixed (6.6.58-r0) |